Make Way for Spider-Man!

Tony Sarg was originally from Germany. In 1905, he moved to London, England, to try to make it as an artist there. But in 1915, Sarg decided to move again, this time to New York City. 

Sarg was part of a wave of more than 15 million immigrants—many from Germany, Italy, and Ireland—who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s. Many settled in cities like New York, which had already become a melting pot of cultures. 

In New York, Sarg continued to pursue his dream of becoming a successful artist. He was a skilled cartoonist and started selling his work to newspapers and magazines. He also began putting on puppet shows. He would spend hours building and painting marionettes—puppets controlled by strings. Eventually, his shows became famous across the city, and Sarg was hired to design mechanical puppet displays for a department store called Macy’s. It was at Macy’s in the 1920s that Sarg would take his puppets to the next level, ultimately creating one of the most iconic and beloved American traditions. 

In the 1920s, many people working at Macy’s were immigrants. During the holiday season, a number of these newcomers, including Sarg, were looking for ways to celebrate like they did back home. In Europe, parades were common around the holidays. So, in 1924, Macy’s held its first holiday parade on Thanksgiving Day. But the parade looked very different than it does today. It consisted mostly of Macy’s employees dressed up in costumes. It wasn’t until 1927 that Sarg would put his historic stamp on the parade, inventing a tradition that has since become synonymous with Thanksgiving: giant balloons. 

Inspired by large sculptures that would parade down the street during Karneval, a traditional pre-Easter celebration in Germany, Sarg had the idea to create balloons that would fly above parade goers. The characters would be filled with air and attached to giant sticks—and later ropes—that could steer them through the sky, like larger-than-life, floating puppets. Sarg spent months building the first balloons, which included a cat and a dragon. And on Thanksgiving Day in 1927, they took to the skies. 

The balloons were a huge hit. Sarg must have been thrilled. After all, as a puppeteer, he was in the business of spreading joy. But Sarg couldn’t have known that he had just started a custom that would persist—and continue to delight so many—for more than a century.